Two Amursk residents to go on trial for human trafficking

January 31, 2012, 15:01 UTC+3The suspects will go on trial for selling girls into sexual slavery

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ITAR-TASS

KHABAROVSK, January 31 (Itar-Tass) — Two residents of the town of Amursk in the Khabarovsk territory, aged 35 and 58, will go on trial for selling girls into sexual slavery aboard, an official at the regional department of the Investigation Committee told Itar-Tass on Tuesday. The criminal case comprises 241 volumes. A prosecutor has endorsed the indictment and the case was sent to court.

The investigators ascertained that the suspects recruited and sold into sex slavery 51 young women, including five underage girls. The victims were ferried to nightclubs of Turkey, Greece, Israel, Cyprus, South Korea and China. Initially, the suspects promised the girls that they would be employed as dancers or waitresses at prestigious restaurants, have comfortable living conditions and high salaries.

However, once abroad, the girls were forced into prostitution. Their passports were taken away from them.

According to the investigators, the suspects interacted with representatives of foreign criminal groups. They were paid at least 1,000 dollars for each girl they smuggled abroad. Their income ran into dozens of thousands euros and U.S. dollars. In 2009 through 2010, one of them scored 15,000 euros, 13,000 U.S. dollars, and more than 70,000 roubles in payments from foreign "partners."

Russia’s Far Eastern Federal District police took an active part in investigating the criminal case. Together with the law-enforcement agencies of Greece, they participated in freeing the injured parties in Athens. The information passed to the Greek police enabled them to carry out a special operation, in which the authorities shut down ten strip nightclubs, arraigned more than 180 persons and arrested 19 members of criminal groups.